ACL’s Atlantic Star, World’s Biggest Roll-On/Roll-Off Containership

Delivered in October, the Atlantic Star is the first of five new ‘G4’ ro-ro/containerships (ConRo) for Atlantic Container Line (ACL) to be used for transatlantic service.

Its maiden voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia to the Port of New York and New Jersey, Norfolk and Baltimore is scheduled for early January. (Update: Atlantic Star’s arrival in New York harbor is schedule for Saturday Jan. 10 at 6 a.m.).

The vessel is actually the largest ConRo ever built, featuring a new design that increases capacity without significantly compared to its predecessors and without changing the dimensions of the of the ship. Each ship in the G4 series will be built with a container capacity of 3,800 TEUs, plus 28,900 square meters of roll-on/roll-off space and a car capacity of 1307 vehicles. The ro-ro ramps are both wider and shallower, but inside decks are higher (up to 7.4 meters) and with fewer columns, making for easier loading and discharge of oversized cargo. With better use of space, ACL estimates that emissions per TEU are reduced by 65%.

Photo credit: ACL

The company also notes that the fleet continues to employ “cell?guides on deck”, a feature that ACL hopes will help continue its enviable track record of having never lost a container overboard in the last 30 years. The innovative design involves putting all ro-ro cargo midships and stowing heavier, more densely-stowed containerized cargo fore and aft, resulting in greater stability and a more efficient use of vessel space. In conventional ConRo ships, the containerized cargo is stored on deck with the lighter and less dense ro-ro cargo below deck, requiring a great deal of ballast for stability.

The design for the G4 vessels comes from Danish naval architecture firm Knud E. Hansen and construction is taking place Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding in China.

The remaining four ships are expected to be delivered in the first half of 2016 and will also join the Atlantic Star providing transatlantic service.